The Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries has established two biosecurity greenhouses in the experimental farm of Sa Granja in order to study the pathogenicity of Xylella fastidiosa in 17 varieties of almond, 19 vineyards, 29 olive trees, and in Aleppo pine, juniper, holm oak, and the broad-leaf aladierna forest species.
The goal is to identify the most resistant varieties to the bacterium in order to promote their plantation, according to a press release from the Government.
In addition, insect vectors and their transmission capacity will also be analyzed in these greenhouses. The first tests of inoculations in almond trees that were carried out at the end of 2017 can also be found there.
The Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries, Vicenç Vidal, stressed during his visit to the facilities that, after the detection of the first positive case, the Ministry used all of its tools to contain the disease, which has been one of the greatest successes of this legislature.
Vidal said that they needed to know which varieties have a greater resistance to the Xylella to be able to better control this disease. "This knowledge will allow us to know which varieties can be replanted and which ones will offer resistance."
He insisted that they needed to develop strategies so that the sector wouldn't be harmed in the future. The Minister stressed that the Ministry had worked on "participation, research, experimentation and support for the sector."
In turn, plant pathologist Eduardo Moralejo, who is in charge of the inoculations, said that the tests carried out in the greenhouse consisted of isolating the bacteria, making a culture to prepare the inoculum in a suitable medium, and then performing a mechanical inoculation to the different varieties, i.e. a total of 780 between plants and trees.
The Government stated that, currently, there were 692 positive cases of Xylella fastidiosa confirmed in the Islands' plants and trees. Of that number, 415 cases correspond to Mallorca, 162 to Ibiza and 115 to Menorca. There have been no detections in Formentera.
Finally, there are also other prevention measures such as the official control of the phytosanitary status of nursery plants and the cleaning of forests, a project that is subsidized by the sustainable tourism tax fund.
Source: Europa Press